Editorial — Issue 84

Now in its 18th year, New Zealand Books is coming of age. Starting with this issue, you’ll be able to read us online as well as in print. Thanks to the foresight of our publisher Peppercorn Press and the generosity of Creative New Zealand, you can opt to have the quarterly delivered to your letterbox and/or to your computer. Unless, of course, you prefer to buy it over the counter of your favourite bookshop.

The Magazine Marketing Company Limited (TMMC) approached the board earlier this year, eager to add this journal to its extensive stable of international and national journals. These include the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Granta and Landfall. How could we refuse?

TMMC’s case for going digital was compelling. We expect digital subscriptions to be especially attractive to New Zealanders and others abroad, readers on the move and those accustomed to finding what they want at the touch of a key.

The print version will remain elegantly black and white, while the online version is in full colour. We expect eventually to have all our issues available online, right back to the very first. And this, in time, will have the added advantage of allowing subscribers to refer to a comprehensive index – by reviewer, author or book title.

From now on, your annual subscription reminder will come from TMMC. And if you want to take out a new subscription, you can either go to our own website here www.nzbooks.org.nz and click on Subscribe, which will take you to TMMC, or go directly to TMMC’s site www.mercurysubs.co.nz and click on Literary in the left-hand column of the home page.

The annual sub for our print edition remains at $39.95. The digital version – delivered to you four times a year via simple and appealing Zinio technology – costs $24.95. Or you can subscribe to both versions for $54.95.

So … everything changes, and everything remains the same. We wish you many more years rewarding reading, and a happy 2009.